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By every metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a rapid and remarkable thing. It unfolded during a span of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were just a regional cause of excitement in Manchester, largely ignored by the established channels for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The rock journalism had barely covered their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to pack even a smaller London club such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. Their single Fools Gold had entered the charts at No 8 and their appearance was the main draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable state of affairs for the majority of alternative groups in the end of the 1980s.

In retrospect, you can identify numerous reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously attracting a far bigger and broader audience than typically displayed an interest in indie music at the time. They were set apart by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the expanding dance music scene – their confidently defiant attitude and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly virtuosic in a scene of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible truth that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section grooved in a way entirely unlike any other act in British alt-rock at the time. There’s an argument that the melody of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s old C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were playing behind it certainly did not: you could dance to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to most of the tracks that graced the turntables 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 usual alternative group influences, which was absolutely right: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “great Motown-inspired and groove music”.

The smoothness of his performance was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled first record: it’s Mani who propels the moment when I Am the Resurrection shifts from Motown stomp into free-flowing funk, his octave-leaping riffs that add bounce of Waterfall.

Sometimes the sauce wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song is not the vocal melody or Squire’s wah-pedal-heavy playing, or even the breakbeat borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bassline. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled artistically it was because they were not enough groovy. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a somewhat stiff”. He was a strong supporter of their oft-dismissed follow-up record, Second Coming but believed its weaknesses could have been rectified by cutting some of the layers of Led Zeppelin-inspired guitar and “reverting to the groove”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights usually occur during the instances when Mounfield was really given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its more sluggish songs, you can hear him metaphorically willing the band to pick up the pace. His performance on Tightrope is totally contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s going on on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to inject a bit of pep into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable folk-rock – not a genre one suspects listeners was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His efforts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire left the band in the wake of Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses collapsed completely after a disastrous headlining set at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively energising effect on a band in a decline after the tepid reception to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became more echo-laden, weightier and increasingly fuzzy, but the groove that had provided the Stone Roses a point of difference was still in evidence – especially on the low-slung rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to push his bass work to the fore. His popping, hypnotic low-end pattern is very much the highlight on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – like Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the finest album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Always an friendly, clubbable presence – the author John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the media was invariably punctured if Mani “became more relaxed” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a customised bass that displayed the legend “Super-Yob”, the moniker of Slade’s preposterously styled and constantly grinning axeman Dave Hill. This reformation did not lead to anything more than a long succession of hugely profitable concerts – two fresh singles put out by the reformed quartet only demonstrated that any magic had been present in 1989 had turned out impossible to rediscover 18 years on – and Mani quietly announced his departure from music in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now focused on fly-fishing, which additionally provided “a good reason to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he felt he’d done enough: he’d definitely made an impact. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of ways. Oasis certainly took note of their swaggering attitude, while the 90s British music scene as a movement was shaped by a aim to break the usual market limitations of indie rock and reach a wider mainstream audience, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious direct effect was a sort of rhythmic shift: in the wake of their initial success, you suddenly encountered many alternative acts who aimed to make their fans dance. That was Mani’s artistic raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, right?” he once stated. “That’s what they’re for.”