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By any metric, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary phenomenon. It unfolded during a span of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were merely a local source of buzz in Manchester, mostly overlooked by the established channels for indie music in Britain. John Peel wasn’t a fan. The music press had barely mentioned their most recent 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 appearance was the main attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a barely conceivable state of affairs for the majority of alternative groups in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can identify numerous reasons why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, clearly attracting a far bigger and broader crowd than usually displayed an interest in alternative rock at the time. They were distinguished by their appearance – which seemed to align them more to the expanding dance music scene – their confidently defiant demeanor and the skill of the lead guitarist John Squire, openly virtuosic in a scene of distorted aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable truth that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums swung in a way completely unlike anything else in British alternative music at the time. There’s an point that the tune of Made of Stone bore a distinct resemblance to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were doing behind it certainly did not: you could move to it in a way that you could not to the majority of the tracks that featured on the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way got the impression that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bassist Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been brought up on sounds quite distinct from the usual indie band set texts, which was completely right: Mani was a huge fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his guiding lights were “good Motown-inspired and groove music”.

The smoothness of his playing was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous debut album: it’s Mani who propels the point when I Am the Resurrection transitions from Motown stomp into loose-limbed funk, his jumping lines that add bounce of Waterfall.

At times 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 guitar work, or even the breakbeat borrowed from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s writhing, relentless bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the first thing that springs to mind is the bass line.

In fact, in Mani’s view, when the Stone Roses stumbled musically it was because they were not enough funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was lackluster, he suggested, because it “could have swung, it’s a somewhat stiff”. He was a staunch supporter of their oft-dismissed follow-up record, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses could have been rectified by cutting some of the layers of hard rock-influenced six-string work and “returning to the rhythm”.

He likely had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of highlights often coincide with the moments when Mounfield was really given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the superb Begging You – while on its increasingly sluggish songs, you can hear him metaphorically willing the band to increase the tempo. His playing on Tightrope is totally contrary to the lethargy of everything else that’s going on on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly attempting to inject a bit of pep into what’s otherwise some unremarkable country-rock – not a genre anyone would guess listeners was in a rush 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 release, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a catastrophic headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s subsequent role with Primal Scream had an remarkably galvanising effect on a band in a slump after the cool reception to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, heavier and more distorted, but the groove that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – particularly on the low-slung funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to push his bass work to the fore. His percussive, hypnotic bass line is very much the star turn on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his contribution on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the finest album Primal Scream had made since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Always an affable, sociable presence – the writer John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the media was always broken if Mani “became more relaxed” – he performed at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a customised bass that bore the inscription “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s outrageously styled and constantly grinning guitarist Dave Hill. Said reformation failed to translate into anything beyond a long series of extremely profitable gigs – two fresh tracks released by the reconstituted four-piece only demonstrated that any spark had been present in 1989 had proved unattainable to recapture nearly two decades later – and Mani discreetly announced his retirement in 2021. He’d made his money and was now focused on fly-fishing, which additionally provided “a great excuse to go to the pub”.

Maybe he thought he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly made an impact. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of ways. Oasis undoubtedly observed their confident approach, while Britpop as a movement was informed by a aim to break the usual commercial constraints of alternative music and attract a wider general public, as the Roses had done. But their most obvious direct influence was a kind of rhythmic change: in the wake of their early success, you suddenly couldn’t move for alternative acts who aimed to make their audiences dance. That was Mani’s musical raison d’être. “It’s what the bass and drums are for, aren’t they?” he once averred. “That’s what they’re for.”