Singer Sandy Lam Yik-lin intends to take fans down memory lane at her upcoming performance in the capital. She will not only sing her biggest hits but also share the stories behind them.

Like her concert in Shanghai earlier this year, Yik-lin's Live in Beijing, will be a back-to-basics affair - from the stage setting to the singer's clothes.

"I've seen and tried various dazzling effects on stage, but now I want to just sing for my fans and for myself," she says at a press conference in Beijing.

"The concert is just going to have me and some A-list instrument players from Hong Kong. I want to strip away all the glitz and glamour, and chat with the audience through the songs," she says.

The concert will feature not just her classics, done in a traditional style but also remixed versions of rock, hip-hop and jazz.

Singer Sandy Lam Yik-lin at a press conference in Beijing.

In the lead-up to her Beijing concert, she asked her fans to list the top five songs they wanted to hear at the concert. It drew an enthusiastic response, mostly from people born in the 70s and 80s.

"I am lucky that a number of my songs have accompanied their bitter-sweet journeys through life."

The 43-year-old Canto-pop star, who launched her career as a part-time DJ at Commercial Radio at the age of 16 and later signed up with Sony in 1985, has released more than 30 solo albums in Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Japanese.

Lam has transformed from a teenager singing up-tempo Japanese-style songs to a renowned R&B and love-songs singer.

The release of her Wildflower album in 1991 secured her position in the Canto-pop scene. Her fame then spread to Taiwan with the release of her debut Mandarin single, Homes Again Without You, in the same year, putting her in the charts, alongside top Taiwan singers.

Her romantic relationship with Taiwan composer and producer Jonathan Lee Chung-shan flourished around 1995 when the singer paired up with Lee to put out her fourth Mandarin album, Love, which went on to become one of the best-selling Chinese-language albums.

They married in 1998 and Lam gave birth to their daughter the same year. She put her singing career on hold for two years to take care of her child. The couple divorced in 2004.

She returned to the music scene with the hit single At Least I've Got You in 2000, which topped the KTV charts for eight months. She hasn't looked back since.

In 2001, Lam appeared in Andrew Lloyd Webber's concert, Masterpiece, alongside Broadway star Elaine Paige. And in 2008, she set off on a world tour that took in shows on the mainland and in Taiwan, the United States, Canada, Singapore, Australia and Macao.