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By any measure, the rise of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable phenomenon. It took place over the course of one year. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a regional source of buzz in Manchester, largely ignored by the traditional outlets for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The rock journalism had hardly covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack even a more modest London venue such as Dingwalls. But by November they were huge. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their performance was the big draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable state of affairs for most alternative groups in the end of the 1980s.

In hindsight, you can identify numerous causes why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, clearly drawing in a far bigger and broader crowd than usually showed enthusiasm for indie music at the time. They were distinguished by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the burgeoning dance music scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the skill of the guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a scene of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable truth that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way entirely unlike anything else in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an argument that the melody of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were doing behind it really didn’t: you could move to it in a way that you could not to the majority of the songs that graced the decks at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow felt that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on sounds quite distinct from the standard alternative group influences, which was completely correct: Mani was a massive admirer of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great northern soul and groove music”.

The smoothness of his performance was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s Mani who propels the point when I Am the Resurrection transitions from soulful beat into free-flowing funk, his octave-leaping lines that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the ingredient was quite obvious. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the singing or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy guitar work, or even the breakbeat taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bassline. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that springs to mind is the low-end melody.

In fact, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses went wrong artistically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing follow-up One Love was underwhelming, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat rigid”. He was a strong supporter of their oft-dismissed second album, Second Coming but believed its weaknesses might have been fixed by removing some of the layers of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He likely had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights often coincide with the moments when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its more turgid songs, you can sense him figuratively willing the band to pick up the pace. His playing on Tightrope is completely contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s going on on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to inject a bit of pep into what’s otherwise some nondescript folk-rock – not a genre one suspects anyone was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His efforts were in vain: Wren and Squire departed the band in the wake of Second Coming’s launch, and the Stone Roses collapsed entirely after a catastrophic top-billed set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an remarkably galvanising effect on a band in a slump after the cool response to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became dubbier, heavier and increasingly distorted, but the swing that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – especially on the laid-back rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to bring his bass work to the fore. His popping, hypnotic low-end pattern is certainly the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the best album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Always an affable, sociable presence – the author John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the press was invariably punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a personalised bass that bore the legend “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s outrageously coiffured and permanently smiling axeman Dave Hill. This reformation did not lead to anything beyond a long series of extremely profitable gigs – two new tracks released by the reformed quartet only demonstrated that whatever magic had been present in 1989 had turned out impossible to recapture 18 years on – and Mani discreetly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now more concerned with fly-fishing, which additionally provided “a great reason to go to the pub”.

Maybe he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly left a mark. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of ways. Oasis certainly observed their confident attitude, while Britpop as a movement was informed by a aim to break the standard market limitations of alternative music and attract a more mainstream audience, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious immediate effect was a sort of rhythmic shift: following their initial success, you abruptly encountered many indie bands who wanted to make their audiences move. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, right?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”