Don't know if this may help you, but what I do is using the "Album Artist" for a similar purpose. It's great how many different applications you may find to the Album Artist field, and sorting order can also be one of them.
I have many jazz albums that I want to be grouped by the main performer of the ensemble but without losing the name of the ensemble itself. For instance, you may have albums by:
- John Coltrane
- John Coltrane And Paul Quinichette
- John Coltrane With The Red Garland Trio
- John Coltrane, Bobby Jaspar, Idrees Sulieman, Webster Young, Mal Waldron, Red Garland, Kenny Burrell, Paul Chambers, And Arthur Taylor
- John Coltrane, Tommy Flanagan, Kenny Burrell, Idrees Sulieman
- The John Coltrane Trio
- John Coltrane, Bobby Jaspar, Idrees Sulieman and Webster Young.
and a large etc.
I set the "artist" file with the actual name of the performers but the "Album Artist" field to "John Coltrane".
Then, I have different view schemes... one is named "All Artists" where the "artist" field is the one used. Another view scheme (my main view scheme) uses the "Album Artist" field instead of the "Artist" field, and therefore all the above bunch of albums appear under "John Coltrane".
I understand that you may do the same for sorting pourposes. Just select all your "The Rolling Stones" tracks, go to properties, library tools, copy & move fields and copy the "Artist" to "Album Artist" (leaving the original field untouched)... once copied, delete "The" and you'll have all those tracks with Album Artist set to "Rolling Stones".
Just a thought...