As Fernando Ortega takes the stage at Trinity University in suburban Chicago, the crowd's enthusiasm quiets in rapt attention and then wonder as Ortega sings the haunting opening lines of the old spiritual "Give Me Jesus." It is this song, from his album Home, that preacher Anne Graham Lotz has called her "absolute favorite," one that comforted her when her own son Jonathan was battling cancer. It is also the composition that forged a personal and professional relationship between the two starting in 1998, when Lotz first invited Ortega to lead some worship seminars at the Billy Graham Training Center in North Carolina. Since then, Ortega has been the guest musician for every "Just Give Me Jesus" revival that Lotz's AnGeL Ministries has sponsored.

On this bare university stage, Ortega gently sings: "In the morning when I rise. ? in the morning when I rise. ? in the morning when I rise. ? give me Jesus."

Ortega's gift for weaving majesty from such a simple refrain, or crafting songs that unfold their magic like movies in the listener's mind, speaks volumes about the range of his talents. It also goes a long way toward explaining why Home was named Inspirational Album of the Year at April's 2001 Dove Awards. The honor, in fact, is only hours old at this concert; Ortega had just won the night before. Not that he brags about it?not even close.

He tells the audience about his last Dove, in 1998, for Bluegrass Recording of the Year ("Children of the Living God").

"I had no business winning that Dove Award," Ortega insists. "I'm nominated against the greats of bluegrass?Alison Krauss, Ralph Stanley, and Bill Monroe?and they give it to a Mexican piano player."

There's no stopping a storyteller as Ortega shares a gaffe from this year's Dove telecast. "They announce the nominees, then on 'Fernando Ortega' the cameras get the wrong person, two rows back. He has a toupee on. And the poor guy, he was sweating, wondering why all those cameras were on him. And my wife, she tries to help the camera guys, pointing, saying, 'No, he's here, he's here!'"

Ortega grins impishly. Upstanding musician or standup comic? So far, it's a tossup.

Grandpa's ghost stories

Ortega, 44, has spent the better part of his adulthood trying to deepen and broaden his faith, but not without disappointment and disillusionment. As an artist, he finds himself secure and successful in Christian music, yet yearning to broaden his audience. The day after winning two Doves (the second for Male Inspirational Vocal on the song "This Good Day"), he boils his faith, career, and personal walks into one humble declaration.

"It has been an incredible journey," he says. "Wow."

That journey began in New Mexico. His family roots can be traced back there several hundred years and are deeply steeped in two traditions. One is storytelling; Ortega's paternal grandfather, Juan Melquiades Ortega, would regale Fernando with ghost stories he dreamed up while plowing his fields by moonlight.

"My grandpa lived all his life (102 years) in Chimayo, New Mexico, near Santa Fe," Ortega says. "He was a weaver and farmer. A couple of his weavings hang in the Smithsonian Institution. And he was a true storyteller, one of his greatest influences on me. When he told a story, he was very good at setting it up so that you could picture the setting and the characters. Many of his stories were folkloric. He used to tell us about 'El Cocomar,' that's our boogie man."

Ortega did not grow up speaking Spanish but learned it at age 11, when his family moved briefly to Ecuador for two years.

"It was strictly a survival thing, but it was fantastic to finally be able to communicate in Spanish with my grandfather when we moved back to the States in 1970," Ortega says. "In my family, I am probably the most acculturated to Anglo society?but I don't want to lose touch with the things that have shaped me. My grandfather was a steward of the land in a biblical sense; nurturing it, caring for it, taking from it without destroying it."