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By any metric, the ascent of the Stone Roses was a rapid and extraordinary thing. It unfolded over the course of 12 months. At the start of 1989, they were merely a local 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 most recent single, Elephant Stone. They were struggling to pack even a smaller London club 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 attraction on that week’s Top of the Pops – a scarcely imaginable situation for the majority of indie bands in the late 80s.

In hindsight, you can identify numerous reasons why the Stone Roses cut such an extraordinary path, obviously attracting a much larger and broader crowd than typically displayed an interest in alternative rock at the time. They were distinguished by their look – which appeared to connect them more to the expanding acid house movement – their confidently defiant attitude and the skill of the lead guitarist John Squire, openly masterful in a scene of fuzzy aggressive guitar playing.

But there was also the undeniable fact that the Stone Roses’ bass and drums swung in a way completely different from anything else 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 doing underneath it really didn’t: you could dance to it in a way that you could not to the majority of the tracks that graced the turntables at the era’s alternative clubs. You in some way felt that the drummer Alan “Reni” Wren and the bass player Gary “Mani” Mounfield had been raised on music rather different to the usual alternative group influences, which was absolutely right: Mani was a huge fan of the Byrds’ bassist Chris Hillman but his main inspirations were “great northern soul and funk”.

The fluidity of his playing was the hidden ingredient behind the Stone Roses’ eponymous first record: it’s him who drives the moment when I Am the Resurrection transitions from Motown stomp into loose-limbed funk, his jumping riffs that put a spring in the step of Waterfall.

Sometimes the sauce 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 taken from Bobby Byrd’s 1971 single Hot Pants: it’s Mani’s snaking, relentless bassline. When you recall She Bangs the Drums, the initial element that comes to thought is the bass line.

Indeed, in Mani’s opinion, when the Stone Roses stumbled musically it was because they were insufficiently funky. Fools Gold’s underwhelming follow-up One Love was underwhelming, he proposed, because it “needed more groove, it’s a little bit stiff”. He was a strong defender of their oft-dismissed second album, Second Coming but believed its flaws could have been rectified by cutting some of the overdubs of Led Zeppelin-inspired six-string work and “reverting to the rhythm”.

He likely had a point. Second Coming’s scattering of standout tracks often occur during the moments when Mounfield was truly given free rein – Daybreak, Love Spreads, the excellent Begging You – while on its increasingly turgid songs, you can sense him figuratively willing the band to increase the tempo. His playing on Tightrope is totally contrary to the lethargy of all other elements that’s going on on the song, while on Straight to the Man he’s clearly trying to inject a some energy into what’s otherwise just some unremarkable country-rock – not a genre one suspects anyone was in a rush to hear the Stone Roses give a try.

His attempts were in vain: Wren and Squire left the band following Second Coming’s release, and the Stone Roses imploded entirely after a disastrous headlining performance at the 1996 Reading festival. But Mani’s next gig with Primal Scream had an impressively galvanising impact on a band in a decline after the tepid reception to 1994’s guitar-driven Give Out But Don’t Give Up. His tone became more echo-laden, weightier and increasingly fuzzy, but the swing that had provided the Stone Roses a unique edge was still in evidence – especially on the low-slung funk of the 1997 single Kowalski – as was his ability to bring his bass work to the fore. His percussive, mesmerising bass line is very much the highlight on the fantastic 1999 single Swastika Eyes; his playing on Kill All Hippies – similar to Swastika Eyes, a highlight of Xtrmntr, easily the best album Primal Scream had produced since Screamadelica – is superb.

Consistently an affable, sociable presence – the writer John Robb once noted that the Stone Roses’ aloofness towards the press was always punctured if Mani “let his guard down” – he took the stage 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 smiling axeman Dave Hill. This reformation failed to translate into anything beyond a lengthy series of hugely lucrative gigs – a couple of fresh singles put out by the reconstituted quartet only demonstrated that any magic had been present in 1989 had turned out unattainable to rediscover 18 years later – and Mani discreetly announced his departure from music in 2021. He’d earned his fortune and was now more concerned with angling, which additionally provided “a good excuse to go to the pub”.

Perhaps he felt he’d achieved plenty: he’d certainly made an impact. The Stone Roses were seminal in a variety of ways. Oasis certainly took note of their swaggering attitude, while Britpop as a movement was informed by a desire to transcend the usual market limitations of indie rock and reach a wider mainstream audience, as the Roses had achieved. But their most obvious immediate influence was a sort of rhythmic shift: in the wake of their early success, you suddenly encountered many indie bands who aimed 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.”