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By every measure, the rise of the Stone Roses was a sudden and extraordinary thing. It took place during a span of 12 months. At the beginning of 1989, they were merely a regional cause of excitement in Manchester, mostly ignored by the established channels for alternative rock in Britain. Influential DJs did not champion them. The music press had barely covered their most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were barely able to pack even a smaller London venue such as Dingwalls. But by November they were massive. 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 conceivable state of affairs for most indie bands in the late 80s.

In retrospect, you can identify any number of reasons why the Stone Roses forged a unique trajectory, obviously attracting a much larger and broader crowd than usually showed enthusiasm for alternative rock 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 demeanor and the talent of the lead guitarist John Squire, unashamedly masterful in a world of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable truth that the Stone Roses’ rhythm section swung in a way entirely unlike any other act in British alternative music at the time. There’s an point that the melody of Made of Stone sounded quite similar to that of Primal Scream’s early C86-era single Velocity Girl, but what the bass and drums were playing underneath it certainly did not: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to most of the songs that graced the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You somehow felt that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on music rather different to the standard indie band set texts, which was absolutely correct: Mani was a massive fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “good northern soul and funk”.

The fluidity of his performance was the secret sauce behind the Stone Roses’ self-titled debut album: it’s Mani who propels the point when I Am the Resurrection transitions from soulful beat into loose-limbed funk, his jumping riffs that add bounce of Waterfall.

At times the ingredient wasn’t so secret. On Fools Gold, the centerpiece of the song isn’t really the singing or Squire’s effect-laden guitar work, 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 comes to thought is the bass line.

In fact, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses went wrong artistically it was because they were not enough funky. Fools Gold’s disappointing successor One Love was underwhelming, he suggested, because it “could have swung, it’s a somewhat stiff”. He was a staunch defender of their frequently criticized follow-up record, Second Coming but thought its weaknesses might have been fixed by cutting some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired six-string work and “reverting to the groove”.

He likely had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of standout tracks usually coincide with the moments when Mounfield was truly allowed to let rip – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can sense him metaphorically urging the band to increase the tempo. His playing on Tightrope is completely at odds with the listlessness of everything else that’s happening on the track, while on Straight to the Man he’s audibly trying to add a some energy into what’s otherwise some unremarkable folk-rock – not a genre one suspects listeners was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses attempt.

His attempts were unsuccessful: Wren and Squire left the band in the wake of Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses collapsed entirely after a disastrous headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively energising impact on a band in a decline after the tepid reception to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His sound became more echo-laden, weightier and increasingly distorted, but the groove that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still present – particularly on the laid-back rhythm of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his skill to push his playing to the front. His popping, mesmerising bass line is certainly the highlight on the brilliant 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the finest album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is magnificent.

Always an affable, sociable presence – the author John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ hauteur towards the media was invariably broken if Mani “became more relaxed” – he took the stage at the Stone Roses’ 2012 reunion show at Manchester’s Heaton Park using a personalised bass that displayed the inscription “Super-Yob”, the nickname of Slade’s preposterously coiffured and constantly grinning axeman Dave Hill. This reunion failed to translate into anything more than a long series of hugely lucrative gigs – two new tracks released by the reconstituted quartet served only to prove that whatever magic had been present in 1989 had proved unattainable to rediscover nearly two decades on – and Mani quietly declared his retirement in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now more concerned with angling, which furthermore 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 influential in a variety of manners. Oasis certainly observed their confident approach, while Britpop as a whole was shaped by a desire to break the standard market limitations of alternative music and reach a more mainstream audience, as the Roses had done. But their clearest direct influence was a sort of groove-based change: in the wake of their initial success, you abruptly encountered many indie bands who aimed to make their fans dance. 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.”