Jimi Hendrix died from asphyxiation. He vomited while passed out from dinking/drugs, and choked to death on it.
Stevie Ray Vaughn was in fact heavily influenced by Jimi Hendrix. He was also one of the master guitarists of the 20th century. He had tons of feeling, but better technical mastery than Hendrix. Unfortunately he was killed just as he was entering the "mature" phase of his career - he finally considered himself free from his long term heroin addiction, he wasn't drinking, and he was back in the recording studio, and he had a lot of confidence he always lacked in his younger days. It was a tragic loss.
Eddie Van Halen is the exact opposite of Jimi Hendrix. He is a technical wizard and pioneered many new techniques, both sonically and melodically, but he has very little emotion in his playing. You could take nearly any Van Halen solo and put it in a different Van Halen song, and never know the difference.
While we're discussing guitarists in general, I'll say this: Clapton is the antichrist. He's technically fantastic, and he can mimic any other blues guitarist on the planet. But that's all he can do well - sound like somebody else. When he's being Clapton, his own stuff is unbelievably boring and lifeless.
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