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By any measure, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary thing. It took place over the course of one year. At the start of 1989, they were merely a regional source of buzz in Manchester, mostly overlooked by the established outlets for indie music in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan. The rock journalism had barely mentioned their latest single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to fill even a smaller London club such as Dingwalls. But by November they were huge. Their single Fools Gold had debuted on the charts at No 8 and their performance was the main draw on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely imaginable situation for most alternative groups in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can find numerous causes why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously drawing in a far bigger and more diverse crowd than typically displayed an interest in alternative rock at the time. They were set apart by their look – which appeared to connect them more to the expanding acid house scene – their confidently defiant demeanor and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly virtuosic in a world of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the incontrovertible fact that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums grooved in a way entirely different from anything else in British alternative music at the time. There’s an point that the tune of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the rhythm section were playing underneath it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you simply couldn’t to the majority of the songs that graced the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way got the impression that the percussionist Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on music quite distinct from the usual alternative group set texts, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ low-end maestro Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “great northern soul and groove music”.

The smoothness of his performance was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled debut album: it’s him who propels the moment when I Am the Resurrection shifts from Motown stomp into loose-limbed groove, his jumping lines that add bounce of Waterfall.

At times the sauce wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the focal point of the song is not the singing or Squire’s effect-laden guitar work, or even the breakbeat taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, driving bass. When you think of She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that comes to thought is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled artistically it was because they were insufficiently groovy. Fools Gold’s underwhelming follow-up One Love was underwhelming, he suggested, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit rigid”. He was a staunch supporter of their frequently criticized second album, Second Coming but believed its weaknesses might have been fixed by removing some of the overdubs of hard rock-influenced guitar and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He may well have had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights usually occur during the moments when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its increasingly sluggish songs, you can hear him figuratively willing the band to increase the tempo. His playing on Tightrope is totally contrary to the listlessness of all other elements that’s happening on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to add a bit of pep into what’s otherwise some unremarkable folk-rock – not a genre anyone would guess anyone was in a hurry to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His attempts were in vain: Wren and Squire departed the band following Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses imploded completely after a catastrophic headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an remarkably energising impact on a band in a slump after the cool reception to 1994’s rock-y Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, heavier and more distorted, but the swing that had given the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – especially on the laid-back funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to bring his playing to the fore. His popping, mesmerising low-end pattern is certainly the star turn on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a standout of Xtrmntr, undoubtedly the finest album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an affable, sociable presence – the writer John Robb once observed that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the press was invariably broken if Mani “became more relaxed” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 comeback concert at Manchester’s Heaton Park playing a personalised bass that displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously styled and constantly smiling axeman Dave Hill. Said reformation failed to translate into anything more than a lengthy succession of extremely lucrative concerts – a couple of new singles released by the reformed four-piece served only to prove that whatever magic had been present in 1989 had turned out unattainable to recapture 18 years on – and Mani discreetly announced his departure from music in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now more concerned with fly-fishing, which furthermore provided “a good excuse to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he felt he’d done enough: he’d definitely left a mark. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of ways. Oasis certainly took note of their swaggering attitude, while Britpop as a movement was shaped by a aim to transcend the usual commercial constraints of indie rock and attract a more general public, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious direct influence was a kind of groove-based change: in the wake of their initial success, you abruptly couldn’t move for indie bands who wanted to make their fans move. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the rhythm section are for, aren’t they?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”