Greencards Meet Bob Dylan

"I was just hoping to see Bob Dylan this summer," confesses Kym Warner with a laugh. The Australian-born, Austin-based mandolinist is going to get his wish, and then some.

Dylan selected Warner and his expatriate bluegrass trio, the Greencards, to open for him and Willie Nelson on their tour of minor-league baseball stadiums, which begins Wednesday night in Fort Myers, Florida.

"Luckily for us, we didn't realize we were in the running," says Warner. "Our agent just called us and said, 'Are you sitting down?'"

Warner gives much of the credit for this plum gig to engineer Gary Paczosa, who worked on the Greencards' sophomore album, Weather and Water, due June 28th on Dualtone Records. "He makes the best-sounding acoustic records in the world," says Warner of Paczosa, who has worked with Alison Krauss, Nickel Creek and Dolly Parton.

Warner and vocalist/bassist Carol Young discovered the engineer's work while they were living together in Sydney several years ago, trying to get gigs in Australia's almost nonexistent bluegrass scene. "We bought Alison Krauss' So Long So Wrong album, and I remember sitting on the living room floor, stunned, just staring at each other and listening to this record, over and over," Warner says. "We immediately went for the liner notes and said, 'Who the hell is Gary Paczosa?'"

An earlier influence on Warner, however, was his father, also a bluegrass musician. "It's by no means a normal thing in Australia to have a father who plays banjo and fiddle," he says, chuckling. "But I grew up with all these instruments around the house, and people coming by and picking. It's like Ralph Stanley says: you're born into it."

When Warner met Young, a singer in Outback country bands, the pair decided to emigrate to America and get serious about bluegrass. They spent some time in West Texas -- "I don't think they like foreigners too well," says Warner -- before moving to Austin and finding a more hospitable environment.

In early 2003, the duo encountered British-born fiddler Eamon McLoughlin at a session Warner was producing, and the three immigrants quickly bonded. "We all grew up with British-style humor -- we were all Monty Python and Fawlty Towers fans," says Warner. "So we had a real strong tie right off."

The band's debut, Movin' On, became a hit on the Americana charts last year while the Greencards were touring Down Under. Weather and Water, which features contributions from friends like MCA country artist Jedd Hughes (the title track) and Patty Griffin (the ballad "What You Are"), is set to build on that success.

That would sit well with one fan in particular: Warner's father. "He's just over the moon," Warner says. "He hoped that one day I'd become a musician."

Greencards tour dates with Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson:

5/25: Fort Myers, FL, Hammond Stadium
5/26: Fort Lauderdale, FL, Fort Lauderdale Stadium
5/28: Kissimmee, FL, Osceola County Stadium
5/29: Clearwater, FL, Bright House Network Stadium
5/30: Jacksonville, FL, Metropolitan Park
6/1: Chattanooga, TN, Bell South Park
6/3: Myrtle Beach, SC, Coastal Federal Stadium
6/4: Savannah, GA, Grayson Stadium
6/5: Birmingham, AL, Hoover Metropolitan Stadium
6/7: Greenville, SC, Greenville Municipal Stadium
6/10: Salem, VA, Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium
6/11: Greensboro, NC, First Horizon Park
6/12: Zebulon, NC, Five County Stadium
6/14: Bowie, MD, Prince George's Stadium
6/15: Lakewood, NJ, First Energy Park
6/16: Camden, NJ, Campbell's Field
6/19: Lancaster, PA, Clipper Magazine Stadium
6/21: Norwich, CT, Dodd Stadium
6/23: Pittsfield, MA, Wahconah Park
6/24: Little Falls, NJ, Yogi Berra Stadium
6/26: Eastlake, OH, Classic Park
6/28: Nashville, Greer Stadium
6/29: Louisville, KY, Louisville Slugger Field
7/1: Memphis, Auto Zone Park
7/2: Little Rock, Ray Winder Field
7/4: Fort Worth, TX, Fort Worth Stockyards
7/6: Tulsa, OK, Drillers Park
7/8: Sauget, IL, GMC Stadium
7/9: Cedar Rapids, IA, Veterans Memorial Stadium
7/10: Schaumburg, IL, Alexian Field
7/12: Saint Paul, MN, Midway Stadium