Tommy James (born Thomas Gregory Jackson, 29 April 1947, Dayton, Ohio) is an American pop-rock musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, best known as leader of the 1960s rock band Tommy James and the Shondells. Tommy currently resides in Monroe, Wisconsin. In 1958, when Tommy was eleven, his family moved to Niles, Michigan. In 1959, when he was twelve, James formed his first band called Tom and the Tornadoes. In 1963, the band changed their name to The Shondells. By 1964, a local DJ at WNIL radio station in Niles formed his own record label, Snap Records. The Shondells were one of the local bands the DJ recorded at WNIL studios. One of the songs was the Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich ditty "Hanky Panky," which was recorded as The Raindrops. The song was a hit locally, but the label had no resources for national promotion and it was soon forgotten.
Originally released in 1983, the debut album from Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, otherwise known as Tears For Fears, instantly blasted off one of the most stellar careers of the 1980s. Immaculately produced, stunningly sequenced and comprised of a sequence of timeless electronic pop classics, ‘The Hurting’ sympathetically explored themes of childhood angst, adolescent heartache and the struggles of the transition from boy to man. It also gave birth to four of the era’s essential singles – ‘Suffer The Children’, ‘Pale Shelter’, ‘Change’ and the landmark megahit ‘Mad World’. Compiled with the full involvement of Roland and Curt, ‘The Hurting – 30th Anniversary Edition’ brings together the original album remastered at Abbey Road studios, plus all of the relevant B-sides, edits and remixes from the period, many of them available for the first time.