Hi lepa,
Thanks for your response. I was able to use your suggestion with no problems in the top right search bar.
I then tried to follow your instructions to modify the view permanently. In the "Edit Search" box that opened, I typed the expression in the second box to the right in the "Add New Rule" section at the top. The first box is the one with the drop down to select the standard items which I left empty. After clicking Apply, then "OK", the correct artists (with trailing "the") came up in my artist pane. When I went back to "Set rules for file display", in the "Edit Search" box that opened, instead of showing your expression that I typed, it now shows in the first box "Artist", second box to right shows "contains" and third box shows "the". When I now click apply and ok, the Artist pane shows all artists which contain "the" in any form, which is not what I wanted. So for some reason I was unable to make it a permanent view. Any idea what I did wrong?
I realize my original search must seem very basic to anyone that already knows their way around MC, but for me, I just wanted to pick a simple task and use it as a learning exercise. I find this type of thing to be the hardest part for me in using MC. There's a lot of different information through the forums and Wiki, but at least to me, it all seems to assume you know where to apply and use this information. In this case, I may be able to read about expressions and copy ones that have been posted, but where do I actually apply them? When I use the help for "Edit Search" it takes me to the Wiki about smartlists. It shows lot's of different expressions but again, it doesn't say anything about where you actually put those once you've created them. As well, that Wiki help for the smartlists doesn't seem to apply to the way the "Edit Search" window currently works, which seems to be a wizard to make selections. I don't know if it was written for an earlier version of MC that used a different window setup for "Edit Search".
Thanks again,
Bill